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Apparition Painting Author(S): Yukio Lippit Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No The President and Fellows of Harvard College Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Apparition Painting Author(s): Yukio Lippit Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 55/56, Absconding (Spring - Autumn, 2009), pp. 61-86 Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25608836 . Accessed: 20/07/2014 21:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The President and Fellows of Harvard College and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sun, 20 Jul 2014 21:15:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Apparition painting YUKIO LIPPIT An episode from the second chapter of the Zhuangzi, was used in reference to theworks of the Chan (J.Zen) just before the famous parable concerning Zhuang monk Zhirong (1114-1193), who was known above all Zhou's dream of the butterfly, involves a conversation for his pictorial renderings of oxen and Chan Buddhist between Penumbra and Shadow: exemplars. As related by a colophon on one such a latermonk, (1164-1246): Penumbra said to Shadow, "A littlewhile ago you were painting by Beijian Jujian "Critics say thatOld Man works will not endure walking and now you're standing still; a littlewhile ago you Rong's because are so their ink is so Hence were sittingand now you're standing up.Why this lackof they vague, pale. call his works independent action?" they apparition painting (wanglianghua)."2 Shadow said, "Do I have towait forsomething before I In classical texts wangliang appears to have designated can be like this?Does what Iwait foralso have towait for not only the idea of a penumbra, but of a "shadow before itcan be like this?Am I for the a a something waiting of shadow," ghostly, tenuous quality that defies scales of a snake or the of a cicada? How do I know or wings easy description representation, which iswhy it is why it is so? How do I know why it isn'tso?"1 as translated here "apparition."3 Unfortunately, because none of have there is no At issue in this exchange is a normative view of Zhirong's paintings survived, of their first-hand.4 But modern causation that assumes Shadow's dependence upon way assessing pallor scholars of Chinese have that of which it is a shadow for itsown actions, much painting observed that textual a of inkwork accord well with a like snake upon its scales or a cicada upon itswings. descriptions Zhirong's of a dozen or so of Chan This tethering of the logic of causality to local, physical, group approximately paintings all from the thirteenth that have and immediately observable phenomena is just one figural subjects, century, survived in collections.5 example of the type of simplistic worldview that is Japanese Despite postdating an consistently object of derision in the Zhuangzi. Both Penumbra and their Shadow, through very immateriality, 2. From "Scroll Painting of Scattered Holy Men by Old Man those of in-betweenness personify precisely qualities Rong" (Lao Rong sansheng hua zhou), found in Beijian wen/7, juan and that the in insubstantiality problematize dualistic 8, Zhibuzuzhai congshu, comp. Bao Tingbo (Taibei, 1964). The full understanding of cosmic processes. colophon is discussed below. The English translation is based upon an was earlier version by Yoshiaki Shimizu in "What to Such the classical exchange invoked during Happened Wang-liang hua in ni okeru no vol. 7 of China's Southern (1127-1279) to describe (Moryoga)?" Toyo bijutsu eikyo mondai, Song period International on Art Historical Studies a Symposia (1988):65-73. kind of rendered in such ink that it 3. term painting pale My understanding of this is particularly indebted to on indistinction. More two verged complete specifically, the studies by Zhuangzi specialists on the "Penumbra and Shadow" as SeeYamada Nihon word wangliang (commonly translated "penumbra"), parable. Katsumi, "Moryo ko/' Chugoku gakkai ho 3 and name to one (1951):53-63; and Koma Miyoshi, "Moryo to no taiwa ni tsuite/' the given of the parable's principals, kage Bunrin\5 (March 1981): 1-16. 4. A paintingtitled Herdboy and Buffalo(Muniu tu)attributed to This essay is based on a delivered at to Heaven: A in the Kozo Yabumoto paper "Bridges Zhirong Collection (Amagasaki, Japan) has been on East Asian Art inHonor of Professor Wen C. at Symposium Fong," published several times, most notably by James Cahill, but is difficult to Princeton in 2006. The author would like to thankWen as to University April accept proximate the mode of painting under discussion here. See Fong and the of the Dora and Jerome 12-14th as organizers symposium, Ching Cahill, Sogen-ga: Century Chinese Painting Collected and Silbergeld, and express toYoshiaki Shimizu for in of special appreciation Appreciated Japan (University California, Berkeley: The University him to the of introducing subject apparition painting. Jonathan Hay Museum, 1982), p. 33, pi. 29. Itakura Masaaki, Francesco Pellizzi, and offered valuable 5. The modern of Eugene Wang usage "apparition painting" (moryoga) begins advice and are here. with Shimada in a gratefully acknowledged Shujiro seminal two-part essay "Moryoga," Bijutsu 1. Translation Burton Watson in The Works of 84 86 by Complete kenkyu (December 1938):4-13 and (February 1939):8-16, Tzu (New York and London: Columbia Chuang University Press, 1968), laterreprinted in Shimada Shujiro,Chugoku kaigashikenkyu (Tokyo: p. 49. The comes at the end of the "Discussion on All Chuokoron exchange Making Bijutsu Shuppan, 1993), pp. 112-135. All subsequent Equal" the second of the Outer the Things chapter, Chapters. inquiry, including present article, is heavily indebted to this study. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sun, 20 Jul 2014 21:15:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 62 RES 55/56 SPRING/AUTUMN 2009 Zhirong by several generations, they reflect his artistry insofar as itcan be inferred from Song commentary, most notably in the following ways: 1) an extraordinarily pale use of ink to depict subject matter; 2) jet-black accents to the face and select attributes; 3) a blank background; and 4) a relatively detailed rendering of the face, combined with abbreviated brushwork for the clothing. Following Zhuangzi's cue, these works have come to be referred to as apparition painting. In turn, apparition painting an a & has become important organizing principle for ^ il & k m type of painting associated with Chan/Zen Buddhism one in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, thatwent . ? ^ Y^ 5? unrecognized in laterChinese aesthetic discourse and survived into the modern era only because of its | 1 41 canonization in the Japanese archipelago. The paintings thus designated are among the most remarkable works of figure painting from any tradition. A representative example is The Sixth Patriarch Carrying a Pole, in the Daitokyu Memorial Library inTokyo (fig. 1). Executed by the obscure monk-painter Zhiweng Ruojing and inscribed by the prominent Chan abbot Yanxi Guangwen (1189-1263), this painting dates to sometime between 1254 and 1256. Its subject isHuineng, the legendary sixth patriarch of Chan * - < ** Buddhism, captured in a celebrated episode from his -\ \ '<* f, youth recorded in Song-period hagiographies. According to these accounts, when still a woodcutter supporting a feeble mother, Huineng embarked on a path to awakening when one day, while selling brushwood in ' the city market, he became mesmerized by a distant intonation of the Diamond Sutra.6 The Sixth Patriarch captures thismoment of auditory immersion and H* 4 spiritual enchantment. Against the void of an unpainted background, Huineng stands inert,bearing a pole on his leftshoulder, an axe and rope to secure brushwood dangling from it.The rapt expression of his face, as well as the absence of tension in his body?as suggested by his slumped neck and shoulders and the dead weight of his leftforearm bearing down on the pole?indicate the patriarch's total absorption in thewafting incantation. Huineng's enthrallment is also suggested by his otherworldly faintness. The brushstrokes constituting his robe, and even more so those of his face, hands, and can 6. Legends concerning the Sixth Patriarch be found in his entries in the earliest surviving transmission records (lamp histories), such as Record of the Patriarch's Hall {Zutang ji; compiled in 952) and 1. mid-thirteenth The Jingde-Era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (Jingde chuangdeng Figure Zhiweng Ruojing (act. century), see Patriarch a ca. lu; compiled in 1004). On Huineng's biography, The Platform Sutra Sixth Carrying Pole, 1254-1256. Hanging scroll, trans. on x of the Sixth Patriarch, Philip Yampolsky (New York: Columbia ink paper, 92.5 31.0 cm. Daitokyu Memorial Library, 58-88. University Press, 1967), pp. Tokyo. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sun, 20 Jul 2014 21:15:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Lippit:Apparition painting 63 t, ^ ifi ::f m * t * 5. ? Figure 2. The Sixth PatriarchCarrying a Pole, detail of figure 1. feet, are executed in an exceedingly low saturation of ink, so much so that the details of figuration are fully perceived only with difficulty (fig.
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